This work helped cement the big-bang theory of the universe. According to the Nobel Prize committee, "the COBE-project can also be regarded as the starting point for cosmology as a precision science."[1]

^John C. Mather autobiography, Nobel Prize. Accessed June 29, 2008. "When I finished 8th grade, it was time to go to high school, and my parents decided to send me to Newton High School, where they thought we would get the best available education in our area."